Author Renee Embree

Renee Embree is director of youth and family ministries with the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada (CBAC) and the director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry Studies at Acadia Divinity School in Nova Scotia.

Local churches and people of faith must actively support sexual assault victims and provide safe spaces for those who have yet to share their stories. These 3 things need to be part of your church culture for that to happen. […]Read More

Far too many stories of sexual assault and abuse have happened among our faith communities. Our churches must be safe havens, where we believe victims and where people know how to respond to them with compassion and helpful steps. […]Read More

People are increasingly more trusting of strangers than they are of institutions. This is evidenced by the popularity of ridesharing (Uber), crowdfunding (GoFundMe) and renting extra bedrooms or houses (Airbnb). What then does this mean for the local church and how should churches respond? 1. Focus on the desire for community and introduce people to […]Read More

Have you ever used Kijiji, Uber, Airbnb, Tinder, online dating or GoFundMe? Billions of people have taken a leap and used these systems to trust strangers. How trust flows through our society is changing dramatically. We’ve stopped trusting institutions and started trusting strangers, as Rachel Botsman observed in her TED talk. I listened to Botsman’s […]Read More

What do you do with smartphones during youth group? Really, we could ask this question for all ages in the church, couldn’t we? For Generation Z (born between 1996 to 2014), they’ve always grown up being connected. They have no idea the pain of the screeches, squawks and slowness of the dial-up days. They’ve never […]Read More

Kids can be some of our toughest critics. Are you ready to welcome them to your church this Christmas? Churches have such an opportunity during the Christmas season and especially during Christmas Eve services to welcome new faces – whether they’re dragged their by family, feel obligated to come out of a sense of tradition, […]Read More

Three ministries I met with recently asked the same question: “How do we grow?” One was a conference where the average age has kept creeping upward, and a sea of gray hair dominated the audience. Yet, for the first time they were experimenting with running a retreat for preteens simultaneously. One was a small church […]Read More

The church of today looks different than 100 years ago – or it should. If it doesn’t, you’ll have a really hard time being effective in today’s culture. The church 10 years from now will look different than today. It’s the message of the church, the movement of God, that is sacred; it is not […]Read More